The White House and Congress should create a National Energy Strategy Council to produce new policy and coordinate the activities of federal agencies, according to a broad coalition of former senators and federal, industry, environmental and labor officials that is unveiling a blueprint Tuesday morning.

The purpose would be to develop energy policy in a process similar to the one the U.S. uses for national security policy, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Energy Policy Initiative is recommending.

The new council would be responsible for producing an energy policy strategy early in presidential administrations and leading cross-agency coordination of all major energy decisions, including short-term crises and interagency disputes.

“Unfortunately, the executive branch of the federal government is currently not well equipped to develop and effectively implement a national energy policy that meets the criteria outlined above,” according to a report setting forth the recommendations.

One problem, the report says, is that energy policy is spread across at least 20 federal agencies and departments. “As a result, no single entity is in a position to implement, coordinate, and assess all of the federal government’s energy-related activities and initiatives,” the report says.

The council — which would be overseen by the energy secretary and include the heads of several federal departments and the Environmental Protection Agency — would develop a national energy strategy in consultation with Congress and representatives from industry, nongovernmental organizations, states and tribes. It would be finished by the end of the second quarter — June 30 — of a new administration and updated if needed in the first year of a second term.

“The strategy should be a brief, high-level document outlining the administration’s broad energy goals, budget priorities and legislative agenda,” the report says. The council would publicly produce an annual update on meeting the goals.

The National Security Council should also create an Energy Security Directorate “to ensure greater attention to the nexus between energy and national security,” the report says.

The group says the White House and Congress should also direct the Energy Department to do an interagency quadrennial energy review with the help of Congress and outside groups by the end of the second quarter of the second year of an administration. It would review existing policies and specify executive actions and new legislation and dollars needed to implement the national energy strategy, according to the report.

The recommendations come from a team co-chaired by former Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and also led by former Obama National Security Adviser Jim Jones and former George H.W. Bush EPA Administrator William Reilly. Dorgan has been rumored as a potential candidate to succeed Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

Others in the wide-ranging coalition include senior officials from ExxonMobil, Marathon Oil, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Honeywell International, the Teamsters, Exelon Corp. and Southern Co., as well as former Sandia National Laboratories President and Labs Director Thomas Hunter and former Clinton administration Energy Department Assistant Secretary Susan Tierney.